The World: The Ancient Roots of Today's Bitter Conflict

Different invasions weathered and eroded it, piling monument upon monument. The contentions of monarchs and empires have stained it with blood, have wearied and refreshed its landscape repeatedly with mosques and cathedrals and fortresses. In the ebb and flow of histories and cultures it has time and time again been a flash-point where Aryan and Semite, Christian and Moslem met in a death embrace...

—Lawrence Durrell, Bitter Lemons

With its golden beaches, dependable sunny weather and centuries-old monasteries, Cyprus would probably be known to the world only as a vacationers' paradise were it located in the South Pacific or the Caribbean. Fate, however, has placed the tiny island (3,572 sq. mi.) at the far eastern end of the Mediterranean, close to the cradle of Western civilization. A mere 40 miles south of Turkey, 100 miles west of Lebanon, and 525 miles east of Greece, Cyprus for millennia has been a strategic prize for any power seeking to control the politics and commerce of the region.

The ancient Egyptians invaded Cyprus around 1500 B.C. to strengthen the defense of their empire. Then came a string of conquerors that included Alexander the Great and the generals of the Roman Republic. Greek domination began in the 4th century A.D., when Cyprus became part of the Byzantine Empire. The Greek-speaking Byzantines founded the island's many monasteries, which became the source of the Orthodox Church's power on Cyprus and the most important cultural and linguistic link to Greece.

Byzantium ruled Cyprus for more than eight centuries.

After the Crusades, during which Richard Coeur-de-Lion conquered the island on his way to the Holy Land, Cyprus fell to the Franks and then to the Venetians. In 1570 the Turks arrived, carrying the standard of the Ottoman Empire. From the start, the Turkish rulers demonstrated a ferocity that the inhabitants of Cyprus never forgot. After capturing the city of Famagusta in 1571, the Turks publicly flayed to death the commander of the defending troops, then stuffed his skin with straw and paraded it around the island. About 30,000 Turkish soldiers were granted land on Cyprus, encouraging them to settle their families there. Those settlers were the ancestors of Cyprus' Turkish community, which today comprises about 18% of the island's 660,000 inhabitants.

In 1878, Britain took Cyprus in "trust" from the declining Ottoman Empire and later annexed the island outright when Turkey sided with Germany and its allies during World War I. Under British rule, a wary but peaceful coexistence developed between Greek and Turkish Cypriots. Greek landowners in the jagged Troodos Mountains leased their pastures to Turkish shepherds; Turkish shopkeepers bought oranges and carobs from Greek farmers. In the village taverna, Turk and Greek sat at separate tables but spoke politely to each other, usually in Greek.

This amiable state broke down after World War II. Archbishop Makarios, then the religious leader of the island's Greeks, along with the legendary Greek General George Grivas, fostered a guerrilla force known as EOKA (an acronym from the Greek words for National Organization of Cypriot Fighters). They wanted to free Cyprus from British rule and achieve enosis—unification with Greece.